have been known the notablest buffoons; the most celebrated authors, the greatest masters of burlesque.

There is indeed a kind of defensive raillery (if I may so call it) which I am willing enough to allow in affairs of whatever kind; when the spirit of curiosity would force a discovery of more truth than can conveniently be told. For we can never do more injury to truth than by discovering too much of it on some occasions. "Tis the same with understandings as with eyes to such a certain size and make just so much light is necessary, and no more. Whatever is beyond, brings darkness and confusion.

'Tis real humanity and kindness to hide strong truths from tender eyes. And to do this by a pleasant amusement is easier and civiller than by a harsh denial or remarkable reserve. But to go about industriously to confound men, in a mysterious manner, and to make advantage or draw pleasure from that perplexity they are thrown into by such uncertain talk, is as unhandsome in a way of raillery as when done with the greatest seriousness, or in the most solemn way of deceit. It may be necessary, as well now as heretofore, for wise men to speak in parables, and with a double meaning, that the enemy may be amused, and they only who have ears to hear may hear. But 'tis certainly a mean, impotent, and dull sort of wit which amuses all alike, and leaves the most sensible man, and even a friend, equally in doubt, and at a loss to understand what one's real mind is, upon any subject.

This is that gross sort of raillery which is so offensive in good company. And indeed there is as much difference between one sort and another as between fair-dealing and hypocrisy, or between the genteelest wit and the most scurrilous buffoonery. But by freedom of conversation this illiberal kind of wit will lose its credit. For wit is its own remedy. Liberty and commerce bring it to its true standard. The only danger is, the laying an embargo. The same thing happens here, as in the case of trade. Impositions and restrictions reduce

it to a low ebb. Nothing is so advantageous to it as a free port.1

We have seen in our own time the decline and ruin of a false sort of wit, which so much delighted our ancestors, that their poems and plays, as well as sermons, were full of it. All humour had something of the quibble. The very language of the Court was punning. But 'tis now banished the town, and all good company: there are only some few footsteps of it in the country; and it seems at last confined to the nurseries of youth, as the chief entertainment of pedants and their pupils. And thus in other respects wit will mend upon our hands, and humour will refine itself, if we take care not to tamper with it, and bring it under constraint, by severe usage and rigorous prescriptions. All politeness is owing to liberty. We polish one another, and rub off our corners and rough sides by a sort of amicable collision. To restrain this, is inevitably to bring a rust upon men's understandings. "Tis a destroying of civility, good breeding, and even charity itself, under pretence of maintaining it.

SECTION III

To describe true raillery would be as hard a matter, and perhaps as little to the purpose, as to define good breeding. None can understand the speculation, beside those who have the practice. Yet every one thinks himself well-bred; and the formallest pedant imagines he can rally with a good grace and humour. I have known some of those grave gentlemen undertake to correct an author for defending the use of raillery, who at the same

1 [This is one of a number of passages in the literature of two or more centuries ago showing a belief in Free Trade before it became a legislative principle. Shaftesbury had doubtless profited by the teaching of Dudley North, who in his economics was closely followed by Locke. Two generations earlier, Pepys (under date 1664, Feb. 29) cites Sir Philip Warwick as ingeniously expounding the "paradox" that it does not impoverish the nation to export less than it imports.]

time have upon every turn made use of that weapon, though they were naturally so very awkward at it. And this I believe may be observed in the case of many zealots, who have taken upon them to answer our modern free-writers. The tragical gentlemen, with the grim aspect and mien of true inquisitors, have but an ill grace when they vouchsafe to quit their austerity, and be jocose and pleasant with an adversary, whom they would choose to treat in a very different manner. For to do them justice, had they their wills, I doubt not but their conduct and mien would be pretty much of a piece. They would in all probability soon quit their farce, and make a thorough tragedy. But at present there is nothing so ridiculous as this Janus-face of writers, who with one countenance force a smile, and with another show nothing beside rage and fury. Having entered the lists, and agreed to the fair laws of combat by wit and argument, they have no sooner proved their weapon, than you hear them crying aloud for help, and delivering over to the secular arm.

There cannot be a more preposterous sight than an executioner and a merry-Andrew acting their part upon the same stage. Yet I am persuaded any one will find this to be the real picture of certain modern zealots in their controversial writings. They are no more masters of gravity than they are of goodhumour. The first always runs into harsh severity, and the latter into an awkward buffoonery. And thus between anger and pleasure, zeal and drollery, their writing has much such a grace as the play of humorsome children, who, at the same instant, are both peevish and wanton, and can laugh and cry almost in one and the same breath.

How agreeable such writings are like to prove, and of what effect towards the winning over or convincing those who are supposed to be in error, I need not go about to explain. Nor can I wonder, on this account, to hear those public lamentations of zealots, that whilst the books of their adversaries are so current, their answers to them can hardly make their way into the world, or be taken the least notice of Pedantry and

bigotry are mill-stones able to sink the best book which carries the least part of their dead weight. The temper of the pedagogue suits not with the age. And the world, however it may be taught, will not be tutored. If a philosopher speaks, men hear him willingly while he keeps to his philosophy. So is a Christian heard while he keeps to his professed charity and meekness. In a gentleman we allow of pleasantry and raillery as being managed always with good breeding, and never gross or clownish. But if a mere scholastic, intrenching upon all these characters, and writing as it were by starts and rebounds from one of these to another, appears upon the whole as little able to keep the temper of Christianity as to use the reason of a philosopher or the raillery of a man of breeding, what wonder is it, if the monstrous product of such a jumbled brain be ridiculous to the world?

If you think, my friend, that by this description I have done wrong to these zealot-writers in religious controversy, read only a few pages in any one of them (even where the contest is not abroad, but within their own pale) and then pronounce.

SECTION IV

BUT now that I have said thus much concerning authors and writings, you shall hear my thoughts, as you have desired, upon the subject of conversation, and particularly a late one of a free kind, which you remember I was present at, with some friends of yours, whom you fancied I should in great gravity have condemned.

'Twas, I must own, a very diverting one, and perhaps not the less so for ending as abruptly as it did, and in such a sort of confusion as almost brought to nothing whatever had been advanced in the discourse before. Some particulars of this conversation may not perhaps be so proper to commit to paper. 'Tis enough that I put you in mind of the conversation in general. A great many fine schemes, 'tis true, were destroyed;

many grave reasonings overturned; but this being done without offence to the parties concerned, and with improvement to the good-humour of the company, it set the appetite the keener to such conversations. And I am persuaded, that had Reason herself been to judge of her own interest, she would have thought she received more advantage in the main from that easy and familiar way, than from the usual stiff adherence to a particular opinion.

But perhaps you may still be in the same humour of not believing me in earnest. You may continue to tell me I affect to be paradoxical in commending a conversation as advantageous to reason, which ended in such a total uncertainty of what reason had seemingly so well established.

To this I answer, that according to the notion I have of reason, neither the written treatises of the learned, nor the set discourses of the eloquent, are able of themselves to teach the use of it. "Tis the habit alone of reasoning which can make a reasoner. And men can never be better invited to the habit than when they find pleasure in it. A freedom of raillery, a liberty in decent language to question everything, and an allowance of unravelling or refuting any argument, without offence to the arguer, are the only terms which can render such speculative conversations any way agreeable. For, to say truth, they have been rendered burdensome to mankind by the strictness of the laws prescribed to them, and by the prevailing pedantry and bigotry of those who reign in them, and assume to themselves to be dictators in these provinces.

Semper ego auditor tantum ?1 is as natural a case of complaint in divinity, in morals, and in philosophy, as it was of old the satirist's in poetry. Vicissitude is a mighty law of discourse, and mightily longed for by mankind. In matter of reason, more is done in a minute or two, by way of question and reply, than by a continued discourse of whole hours. Orations are fit only to move the passions; and the power of declamation is to terrify, exalt, ravish, or delight, rather than satisfy or instruct. 1 ["Must I always be a listener only?"-Juvenal, Sat. i. 1.]

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